Preparation

This dry tea has to be the absolutely best smelling tea in the world! I would rate the dry tea 100 for smell. It smells very extremely lemony with a bit of ginger but no sour or bitter smell.

When the tea has been steeped it still smells great but not quite as good as when it is dry. The smell of the steeped tea would rate about a 90.

Unfortunately you can’t taste near as much lemon taste as you can smell. The taste is good but unfortunately it is a bit of a let down after having my hopes so high based on the smell of the tea. I would rate the taste at 80 so overall I am rating it in the mid 80’s because taste needs to be weighted more heavily than the smell of a tea.

There are no natural or artificial flavors in this tea. The amazingly good lemon smell comes from “lemon myrtle” which is not lemon at all but according to the package it is said to taste more lemony than lemon .

The dry tea has a nice mixed fruity aroma. No one individual smell jumps out at me, but it is a nice blend.

The taste is also a well balanced fruity flavor. Slightly sweet fruity taste with only the slightest bit of tart flavor. Quite enjoyable!

I drank this hot but I am sure it would also be good as an iced tea.

Actually I am still drinking the tea as I am writing and as I reach the bottom half of my cup of tea it is starting to become more tart. The top half of the cup was perfect but the bottom of the cup is a bit too tart. This may be my own fault since I oversteeped the tea on purpose (for 10 minutes at 85C) I often do this for yerba mate because it normally works out great but with the fruit & hibiscus in this tea that is probably not the best idea.

Next time I will try steeping for only 6 minutes and see how that works out.

This tasted great with the warm Yerba Mate flavor nicely blended with a mellow Bergamot oil overtone. I found the green tea (sencha) & yerba mate was a nice twist on the traditional Earl Grey made with black tea.

I wasn’t quite sure how to steep it since it has more green tea than yerba mate. I wasn’t sure if I should limit the steeping time to 3 minutes or if I should steep it for longer as is more typical with yerba mate. I ended up steeping it for 8 minutes like I often do with yerba mate and it turned out good.

I only got into drinking tea just over 2 months ago and I just looked in my cupboard and I have 67 different teas! That means i have acquired approximately 1 new type of tea per day! I think I need to finish drinking some of my teas before I get too many more teas. I really do like trying new teas though.

The thing I like about this tea is that it is really healthy (see the ingredients) and it also tastes really good.

I strongly recommend a very fine infuser if you are using the loose leaf version of this tea.

Preparation

I totally feel you! I currently have 50 teas in my cupboard and trying to get that number to 30-something by the end of the year. So hard not to purchase more though! Luckily, a lot of the 50 teas I have are small samples ;)

When I tasted this tea, my first impression was that it was developed for its health benefits, not its taste. It tastes VERY green (if that makes any sense to you). I didn’t find the taste objectionable but it isn’t my favorite yerba mate either. I plan to save this for next time I am fighting off a cold or flu.

Quite a bit of dust and fannings gets through the infuser when making the loose leaf version of this tea. I would recommend using a very fine infuser (very small holes).

Note: I am giving part of the score for the healthy aspect of the tea i.e. in addition to yerba mate it has Japanese sencha, two types of echinacea, ginseng and matcha. That’s a lot of healthy ingredients! On taste alone I would have rated it between 65-70.

Tastes good and fresh. My only complaint is that there were quite a bit of dust and fannings that gets through the infuser when making the loose leaf version of this tea. I would recommend using a very fine infuser (very small holes).

I really like this tea. The first ingredient is carob with yerba mate in second place and peppermint leaves at the end.

The package said to put 1 tbsp /15 ml of the loose tea but I only put 2 tsp / 10 ml so it is not as strong as recommended but it still tastes great. Unlike other teas I have tasted with carob this actually tastes like the name of the tea.

This is sold as a healthy substitute for coffee. It looks exactly like coffee and it smells and tastes almost to coffee. Before I go any further I should let you know that I really don’t like coffee at all, that is why I drink tea.

Dark Roast Yerba Mate tastes much better than coffee. However, since I don’t like coffee I am not crazy about it because it tastes a bit too much like coffee, but by the bottom of my cup the taste was already starting to grow on me a bit. I made 2 cups of and I gave the other one to my wife who normally drinks coffee. She could tell the difference when tasting it black but after she added a bit of milk she said it really did taste like coffee.

I steeped it for 8 minutes in 75C/170F water. I understand that this is about the ideal temperature for Yerba Mate. The package says to steep it for 6-8 minutes but it doesn’t give you a temperature so I research it on line first. There seems to be many different opinions on the temperature ranging from 65C/150F to 98C/210F but I settled on 75C/170F based on the bulk of the advice and how reliable the advice seemed to be. I just got a big order of Yerba Mate so I am sure that I will try experimenting with the temperature to make sure I am getting the best result possible.

I recommend this but only for coffee drinkers. My coffee hating taste buds would rate this at 75/100 but I am rating it a bit higher because the intended audience for this (coffee drinkers who is looking for a healthier option) should really like it.-—————————————————————————————————————————————-
Warning: Dark Roast Yerba Mate could be a gateway beverage for people who are not coffee junkies. Since this is healthier and more palatable than coffee it would be easy to start drinking this recreationally then once hooked on the caffeine and the taste it could become a gateway beverage leading to more hard core beverages like coffee.

Just reading the box makes you believe it will taste luxurious and exotic. Here is what the box says:

“Cardamom plants grow in the monsoon forests of southern India. Known as the “Queen of Spices,” the prized seed pods have been sought after for thousands of years. Belonging to the same family of plants as ginger, cardamom has an intensely aromatic fragrance and a warm, spicy flavour.
Traditionally, the kings of India drank Chai that contained this flavorful spice. With yerba mate as the base for our chaï, we’ve added the best of fresh cardamom and other spices to create a royal cup of tea, pleasant with milk and honey.”

I drank it plain with no milk honey or sugar but It really lived up to my expectation and the description. This is definitely one of my new favorites.

I acquired half a box of this when a co-worker was cleaning out the kitchen at work. I tried to find some more locally but it isn’t available at the local stores so I ordered some more from their web site today. I really don’t want to run out of this one.

Flavors: Cardamon

Preparation

If you guys saw all my samples that are unaccounted for in my virtual cupboard… I think I have 200 teas. And while I should be drinking mostly those, I seem to be in the mood for more flavoured stuff. This sample came to me courtesy of TheTeaFairy . She’s been very generous with me on more than one occasion so my house is littered with these baggies. Not a complaint, merely an observation. Please don’t stop showing me tea love, Fairy! :)

Although this is a very tasty chocolate mint tea, it still doesn’t take away the #1 spot from DAVID’s “read my lips.” I think there is more chocolate there, whereas here I am getting more mint. I should do them side by side but I’ve never had the time or inclination for those sort of experiments.

I drank this tea yesterday, added sugar and dairy-free creamer. It really is a nice dessert tea. If you haven’t had DAVIDs and you can’t compare the two you are better off. Kinda like seeing a movie before reading the book it is based on. If you liked the movie, stay away from the book.

On a side note, chipmunks are running laps in my backyard. I knew there was one but I have never ever seen him this active. And I think he brought a friend. I wonder what happened?

Got this from Cha Cha Tea. Smells pretty great, so I thought I’d try a cup before bed. The instructions say 2-3 tsp. I used 2, so that probably explains how weak it ended up being. I made the mistake of adding milk before tasting to see if it even needed it. Oh well, it smelled nice, at least! It just tasted like nothing. I’ll try using more leaf next time.EDIT: Okay, I tried it again. Used a whole 3 tsp, 4 minutes, and no milk. Still doesn’t taste like much! The cinnamon flavour got a little stronger when I added some Splenda, but still disappointing. I’m currently cold-brewing some in the fridge, because I’m determined to find SOME way to make this taste as good as it smells.